Recently, a shortened photographic processing time for silver halide photographic material has been required.
For shortening the photographic processing time, a means of improving the drying property of silver halide photographic material to shorten the drying time is effective.
As a means for improving the drying property of silver halide photographic material after processing, a method of reducing the amount of the binder in the silver halide photographic material has been used, but the method is accompanied by problems such as a lowering of the mechanical strength of the silver halide photographic material, the formation of scratch blackening, and the occurrence of roller marks.
The scratch blackening is the phenomenon that when the surface of a silver halide photographic film is scraped while handling the silver halide photographic film before processing, the scraped portion is blackened in a scratch form after processing.
Also, the roller mark is the phenomenon that in the case of processing a silver halide photographic material with an automatic processor, pressure is applied to the silver halide photographic material by the fine uneven portions of rollers of the automatic processor to form black speck-like density unevenness.
Both the scratch blackening and the roller marks greatly reduce the commercial value of the silver halide photographic materials.
As another means for improving the drying property, it is also effective to increase the amount of hardening agent being added to a silver halide photographic material.
In this method, swelling of the silver halide photographic material at processing is decreased, and the drying property of the photographic material is thereby improved.
However, this method is accompanied by problems such as a lowering of the sensitivity by delaying development, and a lowering of the covering power, the formation of residual silver, residual color, etc., by delaying fixing, and hence a satisfactory improvement of the drying property cannot be obtained by the foregoing method.
In the case of a silver halide photographic material having at least one silver halide emulsion layer on one side of the support (hereinafter referred to as one-side light-sensitive material), by removing a light-insensitive hydrophilic colloid layer from the back surface or by using a hydrophobic binder as the binder of a light-insensitive layer of the back layer, the drying property can be improved.
However, by the foregoing method, the silver halide photographic material becomes too curled to be practically used.
Also, more improvement of the image quality of a silver halide photographic material has been demanded.
In particular, in a photographic light-sensitive material for making a printing plate, a dot to dot work stage is required to be repeated many times, and hence if the light-sensitive material does not have a sufficient resolving power, the images formed become more and more blurred with the repetition of each dot to dot work stage. Thus, a higher image quality has been desired in such a plate-making photographic light-sensitive material.
In a microphotographic light-sensitive material, photographic images formed are not directly viewed, but rather the magnified images are viewed, and hence a higher image quality has been required from the necessity that the photographic images may be legal evidence.
For highly improving the image quality of a photographic light-sensitive material, a photographic emulsion layer or other layer has been colored to absorb light having a specific wavelength. Also, a colored layer has been formed between a photographic emulsion layer and a support or on the surface of a support opposite to a photographic emulsion layer side for preventing the occurrence of blurring of photographic images, that is, for preventing the occurrence of halation caused by that light scattered during or after the passing of incident light through a photographic emulsion layer or, being reflected at the interface between the photographic emulsion layer and the support or at the surface of the light-sensitive material opposite to the emulsion layer side, and entering the photographic emulsion layer again. Such a colored layer is called an antihalation layer (AH layer).
The layer being colored is frequently composed of a hydrophilic colloid, and a dye is usually incorporated in the layer for coloring the layer. The dye being used for this purpose is required to satisfy the following conditions.
(1) The dye has a proper spectral absorption according to the purpose of use.
(2) The dye is photochemically inactive. That is, the dye does not have a bad chemical influence (such as lowering the sensitivity, latent image fading, and fogging) on the performance of a silver halide photographic emulsion layer.
(3) The dye is decolored or dissolved off in the photographic processing step to avoid the formation of residual color on the photographic light-sensitive material after processing.
As a method of forming the dyed layer, a method of dissolving a soluble dye in a coating composition for forming the hydrophilic colloid layer has been used. Such a method is disclosed in British Patents 1,414,456, 1,477,638 and 1,477,639.
The foregoing method has the fault that if it is attempted to prevent the occurrence of the residual color by increasing the water-solubility of a dye, the fixing degree of the dye is reduced, and the dye thereby diffuses into the adjacent layer to cause desensitization and the transfer of the dye to other photographic light-sensitive material.
Also, a method of incorporating a dissociated anionic dye in a layer of a photographic light-sensitive material together with a hydrophilic polymer having the opposite charge to that of the anionic dye as a mordant and localizing the dye in the specific layer by the interaction of the dye molecule and the polymer is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,548,564, 4,124,386, and 3,625,694. However, when, in the foregoing method, anionic material other than the anionic dye exists in the same layer, undesirable problems occur for production aptitude that the dye is not localized well, the coating composition is aggregated, etc.
As a method of overcoming these troubles, a method of providing a dye dispersed in a fine crystal state between a support and a silver halide emulsion layer of a photographic light-sensitive material is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,803,150 and WO 88/04794. The method is an excellent technique for increasing the image quality without being accompanied by desensitization.
However, the foregoing technique mainly has problems in the aptitude for quick processing of less than 60 seconds, which has recently been demanded, and in the aptitude for the production of the photographic light-sensitive material.
The problem in quick processing is as follows. That is, when a new layer is formed as an AH layer, the amount of the total hydrophilic colloid is increased, since an AH layer is usually composed of a hydrophilic colloid. If the amount of a hydrophilic colloid is increased, the amount of water absorbed in a photographic light-sensitive material in processing steps is increased, thereby deteriorating the drying property of the light-sensitive material, which is a fatal problem in quick processing of less than 60 seconds.